you are my freedom
by fabricated fantasies
Summary: Don't keep me from you. - Roxanne/Lily and universes in which they might have existed.


**a/n **For Jess (lunalestrange14) for winning the Forum Competition III on the NGF

Written for the Hogwarts 2012 Competition (Swimming - Breaststroke 2000+)

additional notes: Roxanne's POV; in the first sequence, Lily and Roxanne aren't related; a series of drabbles (mostly au) based off lyrics from RENT's _Goodbye Love_.

warnings: non-graphic violence, femslash, non-graphic character death, cousincest

* * *

**001. **_it's true you sold your guitar _(musicians!au)

It's a dark, smoggy night when you see her, your eyes lifting to catch the intense gaze of the lead singer, whose fingers are wrapped around the microphone stand as if it is the only thing that holds her in this world. As if, should she let go, she could soar high or free fall into another universe without another thought, and your heart aches to join her. There's something in the way she looks at you, her eyes steady on yours, that reminds you of you before you realised that fate doesn't cater to your every whim and passing thoughts and the only way to escape is to work at it.

"Hey," someone greets you without you even noticing there was anyone there, and you turn to face the girl who had captured your attention since she stepped on stage tonight. "I'm Lily - I noticed you watching," she adds, and you're thankful that your skin is dark enough to hide the blush that rushes to your cheeks. It sounds a little creepy, put that way, and you hope she hasn't come over here just to ask you to leave.

"I'm Roxanne, nice to meet you?" you say, your voice lilting at the end as if in a question, because you've never been the best at reading social cues - and okay, her eyes are more than a little distracting. You had underestimated how much effect she would have on you this close as opposed to confined on the stage.

"There's no need to be shy," she tells you, the ghost of a laugh in her voice, and it makes you want to laugh too, because you've heard it all before. You don't _have_ to seclude yourself in corners, or talk half as much as any of your family; you just prefer it. "I was watching too, _Roxanne_," she admits, but you're too caught up in the sound of your name on her tongue to wonder at why she picked you to watch, when you've never really been into music the way your cousins have, the way she probably is. You've spent your days preferring to focus on your studies and getting out of here, because your nightmares consist of you still being here, trapped between the stars that are your family and never getting to choose.

She smiles at you, an unconscious gesture that lights up her whole face like a tiny sun, and that's when you know. She recognised the same thing in you that you say in her, a desperation for freedom and newness and anything other than what you have, because what you have isn't enough.

"D'you want to meet the rest of the band?" she asks with the same light still burning in her eyes, and you manage to replicate her smile before you say yes.

* * *

**002. **_we used to have this fight each night _(vampire!au)

"Why do I never get to choose?" you ask, glaring at the girl opposite you with a strength enough to make most mortals keel over on the spot, but of course, she is no more human than you are, and she doesn't even move.

"Because you always pick the sober ones, and I've been sober for a _century_, Roxanne! Why can't we at least pretend to be drunk for a bit?" Lily whines, and you stop yourself from rolling your eyes at the last second, because it feels too much like she's your child instead of your lover, and despite sleeping with your cousin, there are still some lines you refuse to cross.

"You act drunk enough as it is," you point out, and grin when she begins to pout. Some days, you regret your choice to turn your sixteen year old cousin so young, when there's still six years between you physically and a whole lot more mentally, but you can't get over knowing that you have forever with her, irritating as she sometimes is. You have eternities to do as you please, making love in grassy meadows and becoming superstars and jumping on drunken ravers because sometimes Lily gets her way in spite of your efforts to resist, like now.

"Fine," you sigh, hiding the true glee in your expression, because you adore it when she gets enthusiastic about things you don't really care about enough to say no to. Besides, it usually ends well for you when you say yes.

"I love you!" she throws out carelessly, leaning forward to press a brief kiss to your lips as you've done so many times before. In the early days, you made her ask, because though you loved her you weren't sure you could resist biting her there and then. It was hard enough dodging her incessant questions, and you were only glad that no one else cared enough to wonder why you changed so quickly.

You keep her close to you as she tries to pull away, melding your bodies together and delivering a swift bite to her still pouting lip. She tastes like darkness, like freedom and metal and a million nights before and after this one. She tastes like love and family and the only parts about yourself from your human days that you choose to remember, because you refuse to let yourself forget anything about falling in love with her.

"Let's go," she says, and within moments you have a warm body in your arms instead of her, dark red liquid pooling at your feet in a way that feels like home, you have done this so often. She looks up at you with her mouth curled in a dark smile, her pointed teeth pressing into her red lips, stained by the lipstick she insists she wears because it makes her feel sexy. You _did_ roll your eyes at that one.

"I love you," you say over the body of a dead man, and kiss her like the life that is ending is yours. She tastes like blood.

* * *

**003. **_you're in denial _(soulmates!au)

_Lily Potter_, your hand says the morning of your seventeenth birthday, and it feels as if the world is going to end in that moment. You never liked the idea of soul-mates in the first place, because you want to have a choice in who you love and who you leave when they try to keep you from freedom, but the name carved into the palm of your hand will always be able to find you.

It's worse knowing that your soul-mate is Lily, because she's your cousin and a girl and you had hoped to hide the fact that there's something twisted inside of you for as long as you could. It's hard to admit, even to yourself, that some nights you had fallen asleep to half-dreams of life with her, your red-headed cousin with a longing for freedom equal to yours, and a secret part of you wonders if this is punishment for staring at her longer than you should.

You should be happy, really, because you're half in love with her already and she isn't the type to stop you from doing what you want, but there's no guarantee that she'll love you back or even want you. There's nothing in the universe that says that the name on her hand is yours, even if you have hers forever tattooed on yours, scribbled on your heart line and bleeding into your skin.

She's the other half of you and you'll never know yourself without her, but you'll never be free from her until you know if her palm in scarred by you or not. You'll still be half in love with her, either way, but you'll deny it all you can.

* * *

**004. **_how could you let her go? _(titanic!au)

You dream about that night for the rest of your life - the rushing water, the boat tilting and sinking lower and lower into the water as her eyes burn into yours. You remember trying to mouth an I love you that doesn't quite make it as your hand reaches out towards her to catch her. You miss, and she falls into the ocean below, her body left floating in the sea.

"Why didn't you save me?" she demands in your dreams, her eyelids flicking open like a lamp being turned on, though the gaze that bores into you is a thousand times stronger than any light. Her pupils are as red as her hair, and as you look into them you feel as if her eyes could burn you into cinders.

"I tried," you try to say, but all that escapes you is a croak, like an old woman rising from her chair, and you are forced to watch as she sinks below the waves without another word. You boarded the Titanic for a chance at freedom, plotting to leave at New York and never look back, and now all you do is look back and watch your memories like they can set you free.

You wake and the floor is cold beneath you, the ridges of the headboard pressing into your spine and branding red stripes across your bones, marks which quickly fade as if they were never there at all. You only wish your memories would disappear so quickly.

* * *

**005. **_she's running out of time _(in time!au)

Even hidden beneath a thousand layers of fabric and the dark, the neon numbers printed onto your arm are still visible to the naked eye. They are yet another thing you can't escape from, along with your city and your Time Zone and the body that still doesn't feel like yours, even after forty years of life stolen from your loved ones and from strangers in the hope of somehow crossing the boundaries.

If you looked at it, the clock would tell you that you have mere minutes left - two, to be exact, and that the woman curled into your side has a heartbeat that keeps time with yours. Lily, too in love with happy endings and with you to take the sole opportunity for escape offered to her. She wouldn't leave you behind, and you both love and curse her for it.

"Will you kiss me?" you ask, and the look in her eyes could kill you if you weren't already on your way there already. The 'for the last time' goes unsaid, but not unfelt.

"We never did get out of here, did we?" she responds, sliding closer to you in a way that lets you see the seconds ticking down on her arm in time with your own, and you wish that it wouldn't be pointless to give her your last few moments of life and give her another chance at freedom. She wouldn't let you.

"I love you," you say instead, and kiss her till your clock reaches zero.

* * *

**006. **_i just came to say goodbye _(hunger games!au)

"I love you, you know."

"I know."

"You're going to go anyway, aren't you?"

"I don't have a choice, Lily."

"We could run away together. It'd be like a fairytale."

"How far would we get?"

"It doesn't matter - anywhere would be better than this."

"I love you too much to let you."

"You aren't 'letting' me do anything. This is my choice."

"Go, then, but I won't follow you. Stay safe."

"_I love you_, Roxanne - don't go!"

"Goodbye, Lily."

* * *

**007. **_someone to live for _

You're tucked up in your bed with her, Lily's scarlet hair stark against the silver pillows that adorn it. As you watch, she flutters her eyelashes and rolls over to face away from you, still deep in sleep with the coverlet pooled around her. Your soft gaze skims over her form, which curls into a ball as if reacting to your look, and you sigh, slumping against the headboard without moving your eyes away.

"I hope I don't fall in love with you," you murmur, lifting up a hand to tentatively touch her bare shoulder, which you know is a bad idea even as you do it. You can't fall for her, no matter how beautiful or smart or just plain good in bed she is, because you can't be tied down to someone like Lily, who has her own idea of freedom that is nothing like yours and holds no promise of a happy ending. You don't want to fall in love and lose yourself like you've seen so many others do.

She makes a sound like a contented cat and snuggles closer to you, her head resting on the patch of fabric near your thigh, and you know then that your hopes haven't mattered at all.

"Too late," you whisper with a strange half-smile, and you could swear that her lips tilt into a matching one, even as she still sleeps.

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